scared:
What would you have me do, continue to be abused by being denied spiritual guidance? It is not like I went to a different priest, I went to my parish priest, who’s job and vocation it is to nurture the spiritually sick of his parish, it is no one else’s job.
Is it not about what
I would have you do…I am not your spiritual director. I mentioned to you that I am also having trouble finding a director. But I am not planning to exit the Church. Difficulty is always there. Mother Teresa felt spiritual dryness for the last 40 years of her life. Think about that for a moment. 40 years. I am willing to bet that you have not even been alive that long, and that is how long Mother Teresa had tremendous personal difficulty with her prayer. And she was up every day from early in the morning changing the soiled garments of people dying in their beds in Calcutta.
You need to keep looking and keep praying. Contact religious orders in your area by phone, by e-mail…if you care or have any remnant concern for the state of your soul, you will surely make the effort.
If you were sick with a fatal disease but knew that there was a doctor within 40 miles of your home who could heal you, would you “give up” after finding that your primary physician was not the doctor with the cure? I hope not.
I didn’t say it was a good thing. I have asked to be shown the truth for me it is dark with no light, but when a man of God says no, let someone else do it, how is that truth.
I do not know if you are exaggerating here, but if the priest quite literally told you to “find someone else,” then DO find someone else.
The shear existance of God is something I question, to tell me it is the truth tells me nothing, to tell me to believe is nothing, no at this point I have to have hard concrete evidence. Even the quotes in the bible on refer to my sons’s never to my daughters. At any rate I am duelly informed that what I am doing is WRONG, but what is right again I ask is it right to stay and be spritually abused?
There are countless proofs for the existence of God, metaphysical, rational, theological, mystical, Scriptural, and otherwise.
If you can find it, check out the book “Kolbe: Saint of the Immaculata.” If you are firmly convinced of the need for rational proofs of the existence of God, read the book and you fill find towards the middle one of St. Maximilian’s conversations.
He meets a group of strangers on the train and convinces them, atheists, agnostics, and skeptics, that God exists by expounding one of St. Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysical proofs.
Now, I do not recommend that you base your faith on miracles, but if you are once more firmly in need of something, begin reading about some of the great miracles in the 20th century (Fatima and Eucharistic miracles). Avowed atheists have come to their knees when faced with these, but they are not widely known of in the world at large. Consider as your read about this that these are miracles from God, Whose existence you doubt:
www.ewtn.com/fatima/apparitions/October.htm
www.fatima.org
therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html
Who, might I ask, is “spiritually abusing” you? The priest that turned you away? Consider that St. Therese of Lisieux went to Rome and begged the Holy Father to allow her to enter the convent early; he deferred to her superiors and she was crushed. But soon she became a Carmelite and went on to be a great saint.
Use the examples of the saints, scared, because they suffered much, much more than you and I put together have suffered or might ever suffer. And yet they worked through it with divine help.
This is not a movie I ever intend on watching, why it is one man’s portrait of what happened, no to watch this and even think this is acurate is wrong, I can not accept what a Hollywood act thinks is right, it would have more credablity had it been written by theologeons who are schollared in such works. This is my two cents.
I recommend this not for any special affinity I have for Mel Gibson, but because the movie is a very graphic depiction of how the Savior suffered.
There is no need to read deep Hollywood conspiracies into its construction; Gibson was in fact castigated by many of the Hollywood elite. Hollywood hated this movie; it espouses everything they stand against.
If you know of something else that will affirm your need for visual evidence–because it seems you need to “see” to believe, though Christ said to St. Thomas: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed”–then use that instead.
To see if it is there is another way, but I highly doubt it.
If your mind is made up, why have you come here asking for help? Clearly you don’t “doubt it,” because you are here. If you doubted there was a solution, you would not still be trying.
